Thursday, April 29, 2004

Latino Youth More Likely To Get Recruited Into The Military Than A University

People of color are going to prison or going to war, but they're not going to our universities.

I clicked on the hyperlink today for latino.msn.com ~ and this huge "Go Army" pop-up ad, in Spanish, took over my screen. This sets off alarm bells for me ~ but I'll get to that in a minute. Meanwhile, I live in California where, between 1990 and 1999, we built 21 new prisons but only one new CSU campus. Across the United States, approximately 19% of the total prison population is completely illiterate and 40% is "functionally illiterate" [read more about this here].

At U.C. Berkeley, the new stats were released on their 2004 undergrad admissions, revealing the disturbing, but well-known, trend that the number of under-represented minorities keeps declining. Out of 8,887 spots in the entering Freshman class, let's look at how many went to people of color:

there are only 40 American Indians (a 21.6% decline from last year's "whopping" 51);

there are only 211 African Americans (down 29.2% from 298);

there are only 955 Latinos (down 7.3% from 1,030);

there are 3,538 Asian Americans (up 4.7% from 3,380);

and there are 3,081 White students (up 10.6% from 2,785).

Overall, there are about 23,206 undergrads at Cal of which approximately 79 (or 0.6%) are American Indian, approx. 577 (or 4.7%) are African-American, and approx. 1,395 (or 11.4%) are Latino. ~~ OK, can I tell you that, as of the 2000 Census, Latinos make up 32.4% of California's population? Our State's most prestigious public university falls woefully short of reflecting the State's diversity. ~~ White students make up 28.6% of the undergrad population and Asian American students are 21.6%, although that number is comprised of about 8 Asian sub-categories, none of which is more than 4% of the total undergrad population. U.C. Berkeley lists all of these statistics on their Office of Student Outreach website.

But back to the primary issue I wanted to bring up. The pop-up ad was especially troubling for me in light of an article entitled Military Steps Up Drive To Recruit Latinos on the American Friends Service Committee website ("founded by Quakers in 1917 to provide conscientious objectors with an opportunity to aid civilian war victims"). So, the government is concerned that "Latinos are a fast growing segment of the youth population, but have long been considered "under-represented" in the military." [The military, the MILITARY is where they are concerned about our under-representation?!?!] Latinos only make up about 3% of enlisted officers, but the Pentagon is considering "expanding outreach" to Latinos with GED's as well as Latinos in middle schools ~ meanwhile, non-Latinos who get into a University have the option of joining ROTC and then enlisting as officers.

All I'm sayin' is that if the Pentagon really wants Latinos, and other people of color, to risk their lives for their country, why don't they recruit us into University ROTC programs so we can serve as officers?

It doesn't take an expert to recognize that prisons, universities, and the military all have the same "target audience:" young adults. We should all be concerned about which of these institutions our young people end up in ~ and how.

There is an organization in Encinitas, CA that aims to educate young people of color and their families about non-military opportunities ~ namely, EDUCATIONPEOPLE! The group is Project on Youth and Non-Military Opportunities (YANO). In Northern California, there is Education Not Incarceration, a coalition of students, unions, parents, teachers, youth activists, and prison activists fighting to put education at the top of the priority list, over increased spending for prisons, in California. These groups are funded primarily by individual contributors, so see if you can throw some funds their way.